Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The House of Life. Sonnet 21. Love-Sweetness

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair's downfall
About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head
In gracious fostering union garlanded;
Her tremulous smiles; her glances' sweet recall
Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;
Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed
On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led
Back to her mouth which answers there for all:--

What sweeter than these things, except the thing
In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:--
The confident heart's still fervour; the swift beat
And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing,
Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 61. The Song-Throe
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 84. Farewell to the Glen
3. The House of Life. Sonnet 14. Youth's Spring-Tribute
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 45. Secret Parting
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 87. Death's Songsters

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